[Fiction] The Boardwalk

By Jack Durant

The roll and lapse of the surf echoed through the darkness. Beyond the lights, it was the only thing left of the beach that encapsulated his city. The gulls had gone to rest. No swimmers would splash or yell until the next day. And the boats that drifted through the water wouldn’t blare their horns until leaving dock in the morning. Only the waves remained of the invisible shore. And if you did not listen, they could not be heard over the music, chatter, and uneven thump of drunken feet. Noises that had the energy and drive of finality. Sporadic, uneven, and content with a steady, soaring rise before an inevitable fall.

Nights were never dark on the boardwalk. The lights not only kept life going through the late hours, but heightened its pleasures enough to make their static glow an escape from whatever guests had come to pause. That was the draw. A brief hold on the ceaseless. A place to relax and forget the struggles modernity heaped upon the shoulders of its people. Where, by day, they could lay themselves down in the sand like they’d found all that was needed, then rise as the sun set and pretend to have everything that could be wanted.  This was the promise Nucky made his visitors. And that was why they loved him.

Atlantic City had been the first to take the natural bounty of the American coast and offer it as a treat. A resource that over the many centuries had been primarily used for survival. But such struggles were nowhere to be found on his boardwalk. And that’s what gave it life. Or rather, presented the life people wished. This little city was no more than fantasy. That was its magic. A little world that pushed back against dusk’s ritual blanketing. A city street along the beach that defied sunset with lights of its own, making it easy to forget the limits of each day under their shining masquerade.

Nucky’s senses had long been numb to such spells. Now he couldn’t ignore the world that encircled the one his lights had created. This dark chasm around him, always present and lingering on the borders of his world, just outside the minds of the tourists. Nucky enjoyed staring outwards into the empty void and seeing nothing more than the sand lining the edge of the wooden planks he stood upon.

The city was on a peninsula sticking out into the sea, making its brightness resemble an old lighthouse that lined the rocky northern shores. But these lights were not meant to steer the vulnerable away, but attract them like moths to a flame, an appropriate comparison when considering the characters who’d flocked here and never left. Those who had really made Atlantic City rich. A group normally thought to be just as ugly as the insects that circled the fake embers of his streetlights. Crooks and criminals that liked to blur the lines of such distinction. Business owners who sold illegal pleasures, and the city officials who protected them. A motley crew of violent hoods he’d mixed with every cop, judge, and bureaucrat for sale.

But they were not the bootleggers and serial murderers whose mugshots and corpses had been scandalizing front pages throughout the last decade. They were the friendly soda-jerk, the protective police captain, the bookish accountant, all assimilated into the ebbs and flows of the city’s tide, each as natural as the white crests of a wave before its fall upon shore. That was his operation. Laundering the frightening face of a criminal enterprise until it looked inviting. Several layers of competence lay between Nucky’s carrot and stick. Even when someone needed to go, there was a magic and mystery to it. Bodies appeared, turned up, and were found spat out by an elusive underworld that read in the papers like a dormant beast, granting any fool that taunted it his just rewards. It was a force of nature, but not even one that rattled the windows or froze your feet. More like a bayside tide that only needed a few backward steps to avoid.

His strategy was so basic it maybe seemed too simple to succeed. Diligence was the key though. A simple idea with arduous  execution, which took time, patience, and careful precision most could not master, especially in his line of work. That was why he’d been operating so long, and why he was ignored while the government made whole new departments to keep taking runs at his contemporaries across the nation. Men of his station and above that  made their reputations a different way. One with all the vinegar to get to the top, but none of the honey that kept you there. Meanwhile, there wasn’t a person in Atlantic City who looked away when Nucky passed. He was calm and welcoming. Dressed well without the boast of expense. Tall but not large, and often stooping his wiry frame a little, as if to accommodate the smaller world below, or maybe just give his old spectacles some help in return for their long service. All in all, Nucky looked the part of an inviting uncle, older than his years and taking pride in the work everyone so appreciated.

But tonight, there were men descending upon his boardwalk who neither looked nor acted as if they belonged to any civilized society, but like the bandits they were. From snowy Chicago to sticky Tampa, each and every one of them had grown fat and spoiled from the abundance of modern plunder. They frightened those around them with their scars and cursed at any whose eyes lingered that extra second. They often got blind drunk and boasted of their exploits to a more than incriminating degree, while taking everything so personally that any reasoning based on business became effectively moot. There wasn’t a person around who didn’t know the very moment they entered or left.

This was true of the loud ones anyway, more of a nuisance that memory would eventually reduce to a blurred, apish shape. The rarer, quiet types instead festered into nightmares. They would say nothing. Just sit with their eyes narrowed in unwelcome observance. Patrons remembered them, and how this gaze had pried into their soul. Quiet eyes that would live on inside any virtuous mind as those of the devil.

And they were devils. If the carnage wrought this last decade wasn’t proof of such, then that massacre two months ago did the trick. Seven dead, lined against a wall and blasted with tommy-guns by phony policemen. This wasn’t the gangland violence of switchblades, bricks, and cheap handguns anymore, but conflict closer to civil war. New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Kansas City, they all had their problems. But what Capone did in defiance to The Volstead Act would cast him into the role of Lucifer when this nation finally reflected on the noble experiment that created him. And he didn’t care. It didn’t matter that he was the face of what had turned public opinion against this gold mine. It didn’t matter that his antics out west were the whole reason for this weekend’s little conference. It didn’t matter that he’d become a celebrity in a profession that rewarded anonymity. He’d ruin the operations of every city he shuffled into before the Feds turned his own inside out.

Unless they succeeded. That was the ticket. A set of rules and a method to enforce them. They had to be level, conscious, and cunning. The kind of gang that common men weren’t begging Johnny-law to lock away and lose the key. They had to become like him. Take what he did as a microcosm of what their broader syndicate should become.

With all his self-congratulations though, it would be dishonest for Nucky to leave absent his big advantage. Unlike the rough frontier westward and its untamed dangers, the blue water he gazed upon each day was an invaluable resource. Ships could hold contraband. Problems could disappear down the dark depths. And most of all, it worked as a cover. A façade for any eyes looking for impropriety. Nucky used what he had been given, gratefully. It was the perfect sleight of hand for a gangster. A happy mask to cover the deeds done here no different from the worst haunts and alleyways in America. The beach and its ocean were key. His cover, his dump, and his profession. There was nothing he couldn’t get away with so long as he stayed the face of Atlantic City. Nucky would never take his gift for granted, because, though the American shore was long and had many beautiful beaches, there was a good reason this place had become this country’s summer getaway. Their little spot, while never garnering fame of its own before, was positioned perfectly for success in such an endeavor. Slightly north of their nation’s capital, just south of its economic one, and a little east of where the country itself had been ratified, were pools and pools of people ready to be enticed into escape. Atlantic City was a true creature of that modernity, though few realized it. Coasts and coastal towns had always existed, but a beach town, not some estate only occupied by a king or lord, was new. An outcome of the train, the buggy, and the roads all moving everyone faster than had ever been imagined. The result of this progress was usually daunting. Many felt overwhelmed by the new responsibilities and how they should accompany all these ever-hastening developments. Here, they could relax. Slow down to not only a speed still lingering in the catacombs of youthful memory, but down to a level only known before by those kings and nobles. Here, they could stop and take their share of the powerhouse they’d help build. And the reward for helping them do so was becoming filthy rich.

Of course, that’s why the architects of this conference had wanted it here.

Nucky turned his head and the sound of the waves vanished in a sea of mirth. Smiles and laughter dotted the crowds flowing down the boardwalk. Some packed tight together, others weaving to and from their partners like elastic. Men wearing round hats and open-jackets, holding gals in short dresses with bob haircuts, narrowly avoiding those coming the other way. Nucky was the only one standing still. Alone, he watched the people, all unaware they were passing the man serving them this evening. He was invisible, yet always there, hovering just a little ways out like the darkness around them.

Then a noise was heard over the music of the night. It was a cry that cut through the typical sounds, wounding Nucky’s ear in every real sense but that which could be seen.

Nucky started walking in its direction, hoping he’d soon hear the familiar sounds of his policemen putting down what their presence was supposed to keep from happening.

But the noise continued. Nucky could see a crowd had gathered around The Breakers Hotel. Proximity had made the shouting clear enough. Now, Nucky knew both who it was and what mistake had been made. He tipped his hat downwards as he pushed past the onlookers and into the oceanfront property. There, in the lobby, he found a short, stout man screaming at the receptionists over the chest-high barrier between them. The poor workers could only cower and repeat the words that would further enrage their tormentor. Any hotel guests had retreated either upstairs or outside. Though lingering around the lobby were the partners of the attacker. Dressed in the same loud fashion, the men watched the startling scene either amused, intrigued, or pleased. Nucky bustled past them in the lobby and felt the eyes of this pack fall upon him.

He reached the raging devil in time for one of the tortured workers to again utter his futile phrase, nearly grabbing the smaller man but pulling his hands back as he heard a quivering, “I’m sorry sir, but we have a strict guest policy here at The Breakers Hotel,” and crying out the name Al! in a desperate plea to stop the abuse.

The room quieted as the dangerous man turned his head towards whom his red-raging eyes had not seen approach. He heaved a few heavy breaths from deep in his chest then raised his finger as rage clouded those eyes yet again.

“What took you so long, Johnson?” He spat. “You were supposed to set accommodations up for the lot of us.”

“I know, Al,” Nucky started, but the angry man cut him off.

“And you do that by booking the one hotel that’s still prejudiced?” Al continued, then looking to the staff again, screamed, “Do you know who I am? Do you know I can buy out whole floor suites of every hotel in Chicago? And you won’t even give me a room? Forget that. Do you know what the papers say about me? What? Do you want to get a front-page feature in one of them?”

“Al, stop,” Nucky pleaded putting his hands on the two enraged shoulders and looking to the other men in the lobby.

“And who do you think you are, exactly?” Al screamed, shaking off Nucky’s hands and pushing his own hand into Nucky’s chest.

Nucky let the shove drive him far backwards in the hope it would stop the violence, but his attacker followed and swung his fist towards Nucky’s thin face.

The reach necessary for such a hit saved Nucky and allowed him to get further back. Now, in the midst of the others, they mobbed their partner, knowing that swinging at a host was too far, regardless of his poor accommodations.

Nucky suddenly became aware of the time that had elapsed and that the onlookers outside were not only still watching but had probably grown if anything. Turning, Nucky saw to his relief the police had split the crowd in two, while another subordinate had parked one of their limousines in front of the door. Feeling the need to just rip away the rest of this incident’s proverbial bandage, Nucky looked at the two men who could move this proud group, Meyer and Lucky. He looked first at Meyer, whom he’d known longer, then Lucky, who was more dangerous. They returned his glances; Nucky nodded his head towards the door and the group moved. 

The lights outside seemed horribly bright to Nucky. When whispers started echoing through the crowd, he felt like an actor who’d forgotten his lines, caught standing exposed in the limelight. His name made no appearance even by the time they’d all shoved their way into the long car. He couldn’t relax though. This was bad. It was a story, and he was in the center of it. He’d been seen getting into a limousine with the nation’s most notorious gangsters. Those people would remember his face and connect it with mob terror hereafter. Someone would’ve known who he was. And that someone would tell the world around him that Nucky Johnson was in league with Al Capone.

Nucky looked at the angry little man still screaming at him. But he didn’t care about that. He cared about the ripples such gossip caused in the ears of tourists. His reputation would always be a little weaker, his graft forever after a little less smooth. This imbecile’s tantrum had cost Nucky more than every bribe, beating, extortion, and killing of his career. And the only care on his primitive mind was that someone hadn’t treated him like the princeling that money and murder had dressed him up to be. Nucky wanted to kill this man. Put a bullet in his brain and toss him into the surf, letting his body wash up on shore. His remains made unrecognizable by the pull of the tide and crack of the rocks. Laundered by what was central to the scheme he had just put in jeopardy. Unlike the ones before, there’d be a pleasure. Something like spring-cleaning that would complement tonight’s warm air.

But he wouldn’t. No matter what  happened tonight, nothing would be worth a war. Rumors were ephemeral and liked to drift away from every form of truth. It was probably good that Al had swung at him. At least someone would make him a hero out of it. Their put-upon leader who knew his humble jail couldn’t hold a crime lord, much less a gang of them. So, he just did what he could and shuffled them away, his own reputation he damned. He might hate the premiums, but it paid to have his sort of insurance.

Nucky’s eyes drifted out the window. He thought of the waves and how their soft roll echoed through this city’s fleeting promise of paradise. Nucky could not make a world whose ebbs and flows mirrored this calm eternity. But he could try. Hold onto it as long as he could while looking upon his creation from the shadows even though someday it would end. Maybe by a rival or maybe the law, his wheel would be broken. Then it would be time to step back into the darkness. A last nod, not to what he had been pretending to be, but what he really was. Just a single wave that would rise, fall, and pull back into the void it had come from. Through it all, he would do well to remember that. Nucky stared harder out onto where the waves were still making their quiet crash upon shore and looked forward to when he’d again hear nothing but that sound.

Jack Durant is an ESL teacher who has taught in Chile, Japan, Spain, and New York. He now lives in Boston and writes fiction in his spare time. Some places to find his work are Ponder Review, Written Tales Magazine, and The Ulu Review.